San Francisco Bay Area Quick Chargers Getting them sooner

[Phoenix]

For another quick and dirty solution, Nissan should partner with the city of Vacaville to "adopt" that DC QC for a set period of time (i.e., pay liability insurance, whatever), so that the DC QC could be available for wider public use.

 

[TEG]

...My argument is that it is not sustainable, and detrimental to the build out of additional chargers. In addition, there's no incentive to not leave your car there all day...

There are numerous Ecotality Blink CHAdeMO QCs around this area already.
At the moment they are free to use.
Some of them now have signage saying that you must charge the car while parked there, and will be towed if you stay longer than one hour.

It hasn't settled out how this will all work out longer term, but the fee vs free situation is already well underway around here.

The Ecotality Blink CHAdeMOs have been rather unreliable so far, so someone may be willing to go to a pay spot just to get more certainty of being able to charge.

 

[aatheus]

The official announcement on this Nissan initiative should come this week, with all of the Nissan Dealers in the the major LEAF markets getting one. The majority will be in California, but Seattle will also have a few. This stuff takes time, but this is the fulfillment of the promise that Nissan made at NIPD in San Francisco last September. These chargers will all be free to any car with a CHAdeMO connector, and the goal is that all of these chargers will be available to the public on a 24/7 basis. One of the first one goes live at the Santa Rosa Ca. Nissan dealer this week.

If the promise is fulfilled and the bolded part is true, that would be awesome news.

Just to set expectations correctly, Tim did say that NOT ALL will be available 24/7 for logistical reasons, but it was their goal to make the vast majority that way. Fortunately, the dealers' lots are open fairly long hours these days. With a little luck those that aren't initially 24/7 may become so down the road if the dealer is able to make some changes to their lot/gates. (just my idle speculation)

Plus there's the NRG stations that are coming...

Bill

If *any* dealers make their fast chargers available after hours, it will be an improvement over our current situation (0 available after hours, 1 in California). Looking forward to it!

IMHO the best dealerships to start with are in cities with no existing DCFCs. San Jose and San Francisco come to mind. Maybe somewhere between Santa Rosa and Redding as well? Fill in some of the gaps between Santa Rosa and the OR border.

 

[aatheus]

This places a value on both the service (connection fee) and the time using the charger. This incentivizes quick partial charges (better value per kwh) and keeps people from needlessly occupying the charger and space.

Another fantastic reasons to pay for the service!!!

The quick charger at San Juan Capistrano charges by the individual minute. So, a two minute charge would only pay for two minutes.

I read the comments on PlugShare for this station. $10 per hour is very reasonable for 25kW input, if it rounds up to the next minute. If you plug in for 2 minutes, does your card get charged $0.34? If so, sign me up!

My main (only) complaint is that a 1 minute charge and a 30 minute charge cost me exactly the same. If I only charge for a minute I am paying the equiv. of $4/kWh (assuming $7 for the 30 min session, but plugged in for 1 minute at the 50kW rate). Doesn't scale for my personal budget!

 

[timhebb]

NOT A SINGLE CITY, COUNTY, UTILITY, STATE OR OTHER PUBLIC ENTITY IS GIVING AWAY DC CHARGING IN CALIFORNIA.

I have been told that the City of Palo Alto will have a free CHAdeMO this year.

It is expected to be very close to the "pay per use" one at Stanford Shopping center, so I think it is a relevant example of fee vs free competition.


Also, I have heard that the free CHAdeMO in Vacaville sometimes works.

Not quite yet, but the Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power plans to do exactly this beginning this year.

Per the LADWP Director of Engineering, in separate emails to me last November:

"...as part of our Smart Grid Demo Project, LADWP will be installing 16 DC fast Chargers in and around LA. ...The chargers will be all over town near major Fwys. The first few will be at the DWP office building downtown at the four level, at the Convention Center and near LAX. The chargers will not have a charge for the forseeable future."

I welcome this and don't see it as a bad thing in the near term, although I agree it's not a sustainable model (LADWP doesn't view it as a long term proposition either, I'm sure). The market will work it out over the long term. I don't think it's worth getting too exercised about one way or the other.

 

[TEG]

I think Tony may offer the perspective of a (previously) prospective business owner hoping to have people pay for DC quick charging. Sure, free charging is unwanted competition for those wanting to make a business model out of it. I guess the debate is if a limited amount of free charging would scare away commercial interests from attempting wider scale deployment.

Another thought is that cheap solar is also competition. Why would people be willing to pay for commercial charging if they have cheap solar panels at home providing free power there? So those wanting for bill for charging services probably don't like people otherwise having access to free power in general.

 

[TonyWilliams]

So those wanting for bill for charging services probably don't like people otherwise having access to free power in general.

The "cheap" solar can be at the DC charger, too.

I don't see cheap or solar powered charging at home as an issue at all. Folks will, and should, charge at home to start their day with a full charge. Then, throughout the day, they may need power just as oil cars need oil. If I could buy $4/gal gas or $free gas, I know which one I'll take. And I know what will happen to the next door gas station.

This isn't rocket science. And yes, I am close to the issue.

 

[timhebb]

At this stage of the EV game, it seems to me more important to continue building demand than trying to leverage it into profit-making businesses. There's nothing wrong with that, but my priority as an EV advocate would be to boost interest and generate demand until the ship is clearly sailing under its own power. After all, we are still incentivizing EV adoption with very significant tax credits and rebates, and I don't know any EV drivers who have refused to accept those incentives. Other than to accommodate capitalists, why shouldn't EV "fuel" be incentivized for a period of time as well?

Full disclosure: I also am seeking to leverage the advantages of electric vehicles by creating a for-profit zero-emissions same-day courier service in the L.A. area. My goal for this business is to both make a profit AND help build demand for the vehicles. It just happens that free or discounted "fuel" would be an advantage to my business plan, rather than a threat.

 

[OrientExpress]

At this stage of the EV game, it seems to me more important to continue building demand than trying to leverage it into profit-making businesses.

You nailed it. Demand generation is the name of the game. A sustainable for-profit business model will eventually emerge, but for now that it not the goal.

 

[Ingineer]

I have mixed feelings, I think that having the free stations initially is good for the EV movement, and then later convert to a pay model. We have to have people using them to prove the need, and get everyone used to the new infrastructure.

First off, I think that all the free CHAdeMO stations should be limited to 15 minutes requiring you to disconnect and reconnect to continue. This will insure people will not have to wait for an excessive time at popular locations. The bulk of energy is delivered during this time, and in the Leaf anyway, it starts to rapidly fall off after 15 minutes. If no one is waiting you can feel free to reconnect if you want more.

As a courtesy, I always leave a CHAdeMO if someone is waiting as soon as I have enough to get where I'm going, or within 15 minutes, whichever occurs first. I've personally watched people wait until the charging stopped, sitting there for about 45 minutes while I wait. The last 10 minutes or so is only delivering energy around the L2 rate anyway, so it's silly to sit there if you can move to an L2. (Provided you even need that much charge!) As we get more stations, it will be even less likely someone will need much time to get where they are going or to the next QC. This also helps the battery cool off, and increases efficiency overall.

I always try to educate people on this when I can, and I encourage others to do so as well.

I believe Tony is correct, and free is not sustainable in the long run. After we have more EV's on the road, I support a per-minute charge at all QC's as well as a high "punitive" charge if they stay after charging is completed for those problems where people park and leave. The space and hardware is more important than the electricity in my mind, so we should have a framework that encourages drivers to be expedient and only take what they need. That framework should (of course) cover the cost of operation, including the cost of the power. Hopefully we can get the PUC to eliminate the crazy demand charges for QC's, or come up with some way to offset them without requiring huge battery banks or natural gas generators.

-Phil

 

[timhebb]

Phil's observations all make sense to me, especially limiting fast charging duration to 15 mins or so.

The market will efficiently determine when free charging should be eliminated in favor of pay charging (which isn't to say there won't be financial pain for some individuals and businesses in the process).

One possible exception to the pay charge rule might be if utilities like LADWP were to install solar-powered quick-charging bays along freeways, imitating Tesla's Supercharger network, but make them CHAdeMO/SAE compliant. Since the power would be "free" these demo QC charging stations would not need to charge patrons, and would promote and incentivize both EVs and solar power, both technologies that LADWP advocates and works separately to advance consumer adoption of.

 

[TEG]

...First off, I think that all the free CHAdeMO stations should be limited to 15 minutes requiring you to disconnect and reconnect to continue. This will insure people will not have to wait for an excessive time at popular locations. The bulk of energy is delivered during this time, and in the Leaf anyway, it starts to rapidly fall off after 15 minutes. If no one is waiting you can feel free to reconnect if you want more.

As a courtesy, I always leave a CHAdeMO if someone is waiting as soon as I have enough to get where I'm going, or within 15 minutes, whichever occurs first. I've personally watched people wait until the charging stopped, sitting there for about 45 minutes while I wait. The last 10 minutes or so is only delivering energy around the L2 rate anyway, so it's silly to sit there if you can move to an L2. (Provided you even need that much charge!) As we get more stations, it will be even less likely someone will need much time to get where they are going or to the next QC. This also helps the battery cool off, and increases efficiency overall.

I always try to educate people on this when I can, and I encourage others to do so as well.
...

A few times I was at a DC QC, and someone was getting past 90%, and I mentioned (as I waited) that the charge rate will slow down, and going all the way to 100% might not be the best thing to do to the battery. Once someone said "oh really?... OK, I have enough charge", and so they stopped, disconnected and drove off, which was good. But other times people said things like "I really want to get all the way to 100% since I went out of my way to get to the QC and it would be slower if I go to L2 anyways", and so I agonized as we watched it creep from 97%...98%...99% over many many minutes. Other times people seemed intent to get to 100% without really acknowledging what I was suggesting. (I think they might have thought I was trying to feed them "a line" just to get them to free up the charger for me.) So they would say things like "yeah, right... but I will wait for 100% anyways." Anyways, without an enforced policy your luck in talking someone into stopping early could be "hit or miss". At least with the Blinks the default screen only goes up to 80%, so a fair number of people just pick that and don't go into the advanced screen to pick 100%.

 

[Ingineer]

At least with the Blinks the default screen only goes up to 80%, so a fair number of people just pick that and don't go into the advanced screen to pick 100%.

This is probably one of the few things they actually did with their software that was good! =)

-Phil

 

[TonyWilliams]

Phil's observations all make sense to me, especially limiting fast charging duration to 15 mins or so.

The market will efficiently determine when free charging should be eliminated in favor of pay charging (which isn't to say there won't be financial pain for some individuals and businesses in the process).

One possible exception to the pay charge rule might be if utilities like LADWP were to install solar-powered quick-charging bays along freeways, imitating Tesla's Supercharger network, but make them CHAdeMO/SAE compliant. Since the power would be "free" these demo QC charging stations would not need to charge patrons, and would promote and incentivize both EVs and solar power, both technologies that LADWP advocates and works separately to advance consumer adoption of.

This all sounds great if that's the model... auto manufacturer, utility, and government funded "free" charging. So far, it hasn't worked too good, but then, neither has the private for-profit model.

Like I've always said, there really isn't any money in the for-profit ventures, and all the free competing ones (if that's what we end up with) will guarantee there not to be for-profit interest in the future.

I don't see this being a logical model to ensure widespread adoption, but apparently some of you do.

 

[gascant]

While I agree that free DC QC is a great way to establish new usage patterns (i.e., higher mobility) and increased EV sales, it's inevitable that it won't last. We should all get in our heads that we'll be paying real money for charging outside the home sometime soon. The key is that it doesn't cost any more than it would to take a typical ICE vehicle the distance equivalent to what we get from the quick charge. So, if we get 45 miles from 15 minutes of QC, we should expect to pay about $4.00 (assuming a 40 mpg ICE equivalent). A few of us got to meet with NRG/eVgo last month to talk about QC pricing, and this is exactly what I suggested to them, i.e., somewhere in the 25-30 cents/minute range would be palatable to most EV drivers (more if you're on expense account or you want to impress your date).

I'll go a step further and say that we should also be paying road use taxes, and sooner rather than later. I don't advocate a flat tax (like they have in Washington State), but rather a tax based on car class/weight and miles driven. As I envision it, we go to the smog check place with our DMV paperwork, and they simply verify your VIN and record your mileage, then transmit it electronically to the State.

 

[TEG]

I would hope that things could work out that an EV should be cheaper to operate than a gasoline car.
The upfront cost of an EV is higher with an expected partial payback over the years of use.

 

[wsbca]

I would hope that things could work out that an EV should be cheaper to operate than a gasoline car.
The upfront cost of an EV is higher with an expected partial payback over the years of use.

It is cheaper - a lot cheaper - if you use your own electricity. That's what seems like an issue to me, the market friction resulting from the discrepancy between the commodity rate for electricity (as low as 2c/mile) and the monetization of charging to put it on par with gasoline (~10c/mile). Just knowing that the former exists will inhibit uptake of the latter, and I'm worried that inhibition will be in the form of people choosing not to buy an EV, because they think it's no better (actually worse, taking range limitations and charging time into account) than a gas car. Then there's not just a market-driven limit on the use of the gas-equivalent charging by those who have made the leap and realized most of your miles can be cheap either way, there's a crippling slowdown of the transition to EVs in general.

 

[edatoakrun]

Partial x-post of the latest scuttlebutt from North California, just in case you folks want to drive north of northern California...

I stopped at Crown Nissan, Redding CA...

I spoke to a Nissan LEAF sales specialist, who I'll leave anonymous, both because I didn't ask if I could quote him, and everything below is subject to errors in my understanding and memory:

DC at North CA Nissan Dealers?

Not luck yet. DCs at just the three Nissan dealerships on the Davis-to-Chico-to-Redding route (which I've driven several times on L2) would get you to within ~100 miles of Ashland, and from there CHAdeMO paradise on the "Electric Highway" all the way to Canada.

As to Crown, I was told their actual DC installation estimate cost was ~$27k, but total cost to "upgrade the service" would exceed $60 k. Neither Nissan corporate nor REU is offering them any incentives, and they just don't anticipate the LEAF sales volume to justify that cost.

I was also told Crown has sold 21 LEAFs so far, and expect to sell ~40 in 2013.

They are now sold out of LEAFs and (to their annoyance) haven't been able to get any since the big incentives on 2012 closeouts were announced.

They have five 2013 on order by March, all SVs and SLs, and while I was there they checked on delivery dates, and two of the march orders have been scheduled for earlier delivery (output from Tennessee ramping up?) are now expected in February, so four in total are now expected to come in next month.

I was told that Chico Nissan might have sold a few more LEAFs than they had in Redding, but since Chico is even more "out of the way" than Redding, A DC there is probably also doubtful...

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=3319&start=10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[davewill]

I had always envisioned an ATM type model where no matter what EVSE I chose it would take my card and bill it back to an electric utility account. As with ATMs, individual locations can have a convenience surcharge, or provide the service for free. I think that carrying 5 or 10 RFIDs and maintaining accounts with different pay arrangements is going to get REALLY old.

As far as free charging, I think that the time is almost gone where this is a good idea, at least in the areas that have decent numbers of EVs. I feel that free stations poison the surrounding area for commercial EVSEs, and actually retard infrastructure growth. If you don't think that's true, I suggest considering the way people drive out of their way, and wait in lines at discount gas stations (Costco) when people could pay an extra buck for the whole tank and get gas conveniently.

 

[N952JL]

While I agree that free DC QC is a great way to establish new usage patterns (i.e., higher mobility) and increased EV sales, it's inevitable that it won't last. We should all get in our heads that we'll be paying real money for charging outside the home sometime soon. The key is that it doesn't cost any more than it would to take a typical ICE vehicle the distance equivalent to what we get from the quick charge. So, if we get 45 miles from 15 minutes of QC, we should expect to pay about $4.00 (assuming a 40 mpg ICE equivalent). A few of us got to meet with NRG/eVgo last month to talk about QC pricing, and this is exactly what I suggested to them, i.e., somewhere in the 25-30 cents/minute range would be palatable to most EV drivers (more if you're on expense account or you want to impress your date).

I'll go a step further and say that we should also be paying road use taxes, and sooner rather than later. I don't advocate a flat tax (like they have in Washington State), but rather a tax based on car class/weight and miles driven. As I envision it, we go to the smog check place with our DMV paperwork, and they simply verify your VIN and record your mileage, then transmit it electronically to the State.

What about ICE's paying something to clean up the air. I agree we do use the roads and without the road tax. But the ICE do not pay the full cost of running them ether. You want the BEV to pay their full cost but not the ICE. I would have no problems paying a road use tax with my annual license plates, but I would like the ICE pay for the pollution they are creating.